According to sources, the Border Patrol might eventually use dog collars to better protect the United States border, but how realistic is this?

Nextgov.com reports that Wolf Tombe, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol chief technology officer, made a speech in Washington on Oct. 6 detailing how advance dog collars could help secure the border.

" ... the U.S. government is exploring the possibility of outfitting its border-protecting canines with futuristic collars that can, for example, translate a dog's stress level through its bark and relay that data in real-time to a handler through a mobile device," the website explained.

The collars would reportedly send an alert to Border Patrol agents even if his or her dog is far away (the dogs leave the agents for various reasons, such as to rest in a car).

"Canines are still our best sensors," Tombe said in his speech.

Rey Koslowski, a political science professor at University at Albany, State University of New York, agrees that dog collars could strengthen the effectiveness of the Border Patrol.

"To the extent that these collars enable handlers to take greater advantage of dogs' sensory capabilities and enable dogs to operate effectively at greater distance from their handlers, they may increase the effectiveness of each team," he said according to Fox News Latino.

Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union for Border Patrol agents, disagrees, however. He said that the collars are not necessary because agents are usually right next to their dogs and would notice if the animal detects any scents or clues.

"They're the best tool we have out there," Moran said of the dogs. "They're responsible for the vast majority of the apprehensions and seizures. Their sense of smell is so many times greater than a human's. They can sniff out drugs, explosives, concealed money -- anything you can hide, they can be trained to sniff out."

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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